Iconography

From our own experiences and research of psychological thrillers, I have put together a collage of things I think of when I hear the words 'psychological thriller'. I also asked around other people what they thought when they hear those words and included their answers.

Iconic Directors

Psychological thrillers cover a wide variety of problems and issues and different directors and screenwriters specialise in individual aspects. 

Perhaps one of the most iconic and well known directors of psychological thrillers is Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock was among the most successful directors of his time and remains as one of the most popular and well known of all time. Some of his most famous films are 'Psycho', 'Rear Window', 'Vertigo'.

Dario Argento is an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. 'Four Flies on Grey Velvet' and 'The Cat o'Nine Tails' are two of his most successful thriller films both released in the 1970's. Argento is often referred to the Italian Hitchcock. 

Christopher Nolan is a British-American film director, screenwriter and producer who received a considerable amount of attention from his earlier on thriller films such as 'Momento' and 'Insomnia'. He then went on to become even more well know by directing 'Inception' and 'The Dark Knight Trilogy.'

Target Audience Research

We conducted some interviews in order to discover who are target audience might be. We have come to the conclusion that our target audience is mainly males from 16 to 40 however women and males of other ages may still enjoy our opening.

Iconic Sounds in a Psychological Thriller

This prezi explores the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds that you may hear in a psychological thriller. Although this can change a lot between films in this genre, I have listed the most common.

Certification Research

We will focus from certification 12 through to 18 as we believe this will be the most suitable range of audiences we should consider for our film opening. We will also focus on the aspects which may be included in our film opening to be aware of what is acceptable for each certificate.

12A/12 

Violence - moderate violence, it is acceptable however it is not advised and detail should not be included as it may be overly disturbing for the audience. There should be no emphasis on injury nor blood, however, occasional mild gore may be permitted if justified by the context. 

Language - moderate language is allowed and the use of strong language must be infrequent.

Imitable Behaviour - dangerous behaviour (suicide/self harm) should not be in detail which could be copied or appear harm free.

Theme - Mature themes are acceptable but their treatment must be suitable for young teenagers. 

Horror - moderate physical or psychological threats may be permitted however, disturbing sequences should not be frequent.

15

Violence - may be strong however, there should not be intensive detail of how the pain or injury was inflicted. The strongest gory images and sexualised or sadistic violence is unlikely to be acceptable.

Language - there may be frequent use of strong language and the strongest terms are acceptable if the context is justified.

Imitable Behaviour - dangerous behaviour (suicide/self harm) should not be in detail which could be copied or appear harm free.

Theme - No theme is prohibited provided the treatment is appropriate.

Horror - strong threat and menace are permitted unless sexualised.

18

Unlike the other certifications we have researched, adult films do not have any sever restrictions suggesting that older viewers are able to be exposed to extreme violence, sexualisation, illegal drug use, strong language and adult themes.

Target Audience Research

 The genre of thriller has many sub genres including crime, horror or action, however we have chosen to focus on psychological thrillers. Within this sub genre, we discovered that the main characters involved will be faced with an element of unstable emotions or mental ability, therefore this may be encouraging to both a male and female audience.

 Psychological thrillers can also include an aspect of mystery or horror to increase the tension and depth of the film. With this in mind, younger viewers may find this sort of imagery disturbing and inappropriate whereas older viewers may find this exciting and engaging.

 Researching into different examples of thriller film openings, we have found that the popular psychological thriller 'Shutter island' is rated a 15 encouraging teenage audiences to view the film. However, there are some disturbing and violent scenes included suggesting it still can be unacceptable for some younger viewers.

Whereas some psychological thrillers which we researched into, such as 'Silence of the Lambs' are aimed at a much older target audience. This thriller also includes scenes of violence and sexual reference yet it is targeted to an adult audience, unlike 'Shutter island'. We have acknowledged that films which include controversial topics require a higher target audience, therefore as we are choosing to focus our opening on psychopathic issues, we will aim our opening towards an adult audience to avoid any conflict. 

Gender Representation in the Media

This presentation explores the ways in which gender is represented in the media. We have discovered through it, that gender is portrayed in various stereotypical ways, for example women are seen as passive and men are dominant, however this should not be generalised.

We have also created some other paper resources which show ways in which gender is represented in the media below.

This poster analysis explains the stereotypical ways in which the male model has been represented. 

Our Genre - Psychological Thriller

This Prezi indicates the features commonly used in successful psychological thrillers, we have included the main points and expanded on them. we will use this research as a guide for what to include in our opening, I have included the codes and conventions of psychological thrillers and when looking at our narrative idea, it is clear that we are following these instead of challenging them, this has led us to discuss our narrative and deliberate challenging some of these codes in our film, and in turn expand on our narrative idea.

We have also created a spider diagram of common aspects of psychological thrillers which is shown below. In this we have added some pictures for inspiration and some pictures of ideas we have for shots of our narrative, for example the close up of eyes and the costuming of the psychopathic woman. We also have the posters of our film inspirations on the poster.

Facebook Page

Here is a print screen of our Facebook page to promote our production company. We have included the logo as our visual image and will post regularly to keep our followers up to date with our progress regarding our film opening. We chose Facebook as one of our social networking sites to promote our work as it is extremely popular worldwide and now has a slightly older target audience.

 

Typical Features Of a Film Opening

This is initial research we began with as to what features are included in the first opening minutes of a film, we watched several film openings from different genres and noted down what it contained before promoting our findings onto prezi. It would give us an indication as to what to include in our own film opening.

Film Opening Analysis

I have chosen to do an 8 frame analysis of the opening sequence to Memento, this popular psychological thriller will be used as inspiration for our own opening. I have focused on the shot type, the music and the mise-en-scene and all together how that makes the viewer feel when watching the opening as we think that is a big thing to be able to influence when creating a psychological thriller.

Logo

This is the logo for our production company. We will base our production title on our film opening around this image but it will be altered (animated.) We chose this idea as it is relevant to our group name. It will be the icon for our twitter and facebook pages.